Injuries

Injuries

So living over here, I have to take good care of myself. Last weekend I went swimming in Sinogaga. It’s a beach about a 45 minute walk East from Povocon. At Sinagoga there is a nice sandy beach, and around the point, a series of rock “pools” and sea caves, where you can swim. I was there with Benvinda and some friends and after an hour of body surfing the huge waves there, we decided to take a dip in one of the rock pools. Unfortunately, I managed to crash my foot into a uris there (the spiny black sea urchins that are everywhere in Cape Verde) and started bleeding (bit only a little bit) immediately. I got out of the water to have a look and was soon surrounded by a dozen Cape Verdians offering to help. I sat down and a young kid held my foot while a little girl began pulling out the shards. When you get “stung” by a uriz, the tiny fragments from the end of their spines break off in you like tiny shards of broken glass. They got all but three or four of them out. I asked them what I should do about the rest and the girl said not to worry. Then she spit on me.

I was a little bit mortified at first…seeing her spit on my foot and then mixing the saliva with the blood coming from my foot and rubbing it in with her fingers. Vague warnings from high school health class flashing into my brain. I asked her doubtfully if that would really help and she said of course. She told me to let the spit and blood dry for now, and when I got home I should heat up some grogue and then dip a rag into it, and use that to make a hot water compress. She assured me that the shards would come out on their own within a couple days. That night my ankle swelled up a little bit and I felt a sort of light burning sensation and the next day I got serious and dug the little pieces out with a knife and tweezers and applied some antibiotic ointment from my PC medical kit.

So this isn’t a big deal at all…Cape Verdians are “stung” by uris all the time. But I use it to illustrate how, over here, I have to take better care of myself than I did when I was in the States. And it’s not just the stings of sea creatures that I worry about. The air here is dry, there’s always sand and dust in the air, and the sun bakes all of us over here exactly the same way it bakes the land. I’ve had two pretty severe sunburns since I’ve been here. The second time I had been wearing sunscreen, but failed to reapply it properly, and suffered the consequences. Now I never leave the house without it. Your feet get really dry and cracked here too. Not just little ones, but deep, sharp, bleeding cracks on your feet like little slices from a knife. I always thought guys who preened and moisturized and used facial creams and foot files and such were a little narcissistic, but I realize they were on to something, and I do it all the time now.

There’s a weird thing that can happen to your eyes over here too, and I’ve gotten it once or twice. Because of all the sand and dust in the air, it’s common for your eyes to become dry, red and irritated. Occasionally, a larger grain will get imbedded in your eye, but your eye doesn’t have sufficient fluid to wash it out on its own, and after a few days, if you can’t get it out, a small cyst-like thing forms in the corner of your eye. (The use of contact lenses would exacerbate the problem and they are therefore not allowed by Peace Corps in Cape Verde.) The treatment is to just flush your eyes out with saline solution (they don’t have it here), visine (they don’t have it here), or water (which we are told we need to treat with bleach). The other thing you can get here is sea-blindness which is the liquid equivalent of going snow-blind. There are almost never any clouds here, absolutely zero cloud cover, and if you’re out on or in the water for long enough, the reflection of the sun off the water can literally burn the surface of your eyes, causing temporary blindness. My sunglasses are one of my most dear possessions.

Another thing I’ve had a few of over here are these huge fridas (boil-like things). Basically what happens is that somehow you get some a cut or scrape or bite or micro-abrasion, and then a bit of dirt or sand or microbes gets into it and it gets infected, and turn into a sort if huge puss-filled pimple. The 3 or 4 that I’ve had (on my shoulder, under my arm, and on the top of my foot) all got to be about the size of a marble, and they were extremely painful. I couldn’t wear shoes or flip-flops for a week with the one on my foot, and I had to walk with my arm stuck out to the side of me when I had the one under my arm. (This is really nothing though, as I know another volunteer who had one on her eyebrow and it was, literally about the size of a golf ball.) The treatment, according to the PC nurse, is to apply hot compresses 4 times a day for as long as it takes for it to break open and drain the puss, and then wash it and let it dry. If that doesn’t work they’ll put you on a crash course of antibiotics. I never had anything like that until I came here and it’s generally to do with cleanliness. Everything surface over here, be it skin or counter or ground or wall or bed sheet, is dirtier here. Basically no matter how hard you try, taking cold water bucket and sponge baths and scraping your clothes and sheets against rocks, just doesn’t get you and your things as clean as a nice hot shower and a washing machine.

There’s lots of other skin things that can happen to you here as well, and the PC nurse says that, other than diarrhea, they’re the most common problems for PC volunteers. Athlete’s foot, psoriasis, ringworm, hookworm, etc. I’d say about a third of the kids in Cape Verde have the small, circular, white, flaky patches of skin on their heads. Another volunteer I saw a few weeks ago had a small nasty looking red patch of crusty skin on her wrist about the size of a half-dollar…ringworm from a cat or a kid or a water tank no doubt.

I think in general, the lifestyle over here necessarily includes more cuts, more scrapes, more sprains and strains, more bites, more stomach ailments…more of all that stuff really. And we’re dealing with them in a dirtier, less sterile, less hygienic environment with no doctors and only our Peace Corps medical kit and the Where There Are No Doctors book as aids.